By 2030 everything you say, think, or do with the genetically engineered body you bought in a corner store will be recorded.

According to the World Future Society, these will be realities in the future:

—

10. Access to electricity will reach 83% of the world by 2030
09. The middle east will become more secular
08. Urbanization will reach 60% by 2030
07. The race for genetic enhancement will parallel the space race
06. Professional knowledge will become obsolete almost as quickly as it’s acquired
05. The world’s legal systems will be networked
04. College majors and future careers will be more specialized
03. The cars’ days as king of the road may soon be over
02. Bioviolence will become a greater threat as technologies become more accessible
01. By 2030 everything you say and do might be recorded.

—

I am especially intrigued by the general feeling that information ubiquity as powered by technology will somehow translate into the very act of creation and acquisition of knowledge being so accelerated and complex that it could actually surpass the capabilities of society to handle it. Of course, renowned sociologist Anthony Giddens wrote that one of the hallmarks of modernity was accelerated ‘reflexivity,’ or the dynamic of observing phenomena and incorporating the knowledge from observing almost immediately into the act of observation (thus changing the very knowledge we are observing just by observing it).

Of course, this theme has been implicit in the acceptance that technology will lead us all to have a sort of shared consciousness, shattering pretty much any wall separating reality from virtuality. Will we really be so flooded with knowledge that we’ll need machines to handle the overload?

I just know it is going to be freaking cool when I can order chinese food just by thinking of it.